Molly Picklum has continued her recent dominance over fellow Australian Sally Fitzgibbons after a drama-charged start to their second round clash at the El Salvador Pro.
Picklum made it three straight wins this year over Fitzgibbons to set up a mouth-watering quarter-final clash with Caroline Marks, with the pair most recently squaring off at Fiji's Cloudbreak to decide the 2025 world title.
American Marks has won the trophy at Surf City twice before, in 2023 and 2024, and advanced by beating Hawaii's Bettylou Sakura Johnson.
The heat between Picklum and Fitzgibbons had to be restarted after six minutes after a "priority malfunction" caused confusion between the pair.
While the judges were assessing an early block, the priority signal went briefly on Fitzgibbons and then went blank and Picklum took the next wave,
